{"id":34932,"date":"2024-08-08T16:35:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T20:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=34932"},"modified":"2024-08-08T16:35:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T20:35:23","slug":"murder-and-farce-bring-intrigue-and-laughs-to-theatre-auroras-upcoming-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/murder-and-farce-bring-intrigue-and-laughs-to-theatre-auroras-upcoming-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder and farce bring intrigue and laughs to Theatre Aurora\u2019s upcoming season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You don\u2019t have to go to Toronto for top-notch theatrical entertainment; premium productions are available right here in Aurora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the message that Theatre Aurora aims to underscore as they continue the rollout of their 2024-2025 season.
As The Auroran reported last week, Theatre Aurora\u2019s upcoming season, which opens with Meredith Wilson\u2019s \u201cThe Music Man\u201d and Norm Foster\u2019s \u201cThe Melville Boys\u201d aims to recapture the magic of their 2023-2024 season, which saw attendance surpass pre-attendance levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolstering that mission is the balance of the season, which showcases mystery and farce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up is Agatha Christie\u2019s \u201cAnd Then There Were None,\u201d a murder mystery which sees a disparate group of people invited by a mystery man to an isolated island and, one by one, the guests wind up dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt has fabulous tension,\u201d says Theatre Aurora Artistic Director Judy Cragg. \u201cThe guests have been brought there and they don\u2019t know why. One by one they end up being killed off until you find out in the end what\u2019s been going in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd Then There Were None\u201d is sure to be a hit in a time when the humble murder mystery is seeing a significant resurgence in popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it is the familiarity,\u201d says Theatre Aurora President Neill Kernohan on the hot streak of the whodunnit. \u201cI think that\u2019s why you\u2019re seeing things like Columbo and Murder, She Wrote coming out again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adds Cragg: \u201cWhen we did Murder on the Orient Express last season, people would come out in the intermission chatting about, \u2018Who do you think it was?\u2019 It becomes this great discussion. People are, I think, still at the point post-pandemic that they still want to be entertained and challenged a bit, and we want them to be entertained. And Then There Were None is great. It\u2019s going to be lots of atmosphere, especially with the setting. The setting is a big part of that one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A theatre company might be forgiven for wanting to keep behind-the-scenes drama under wraps, but when you have a play as funny as Michael Frayn\u2019s \u201cNoises Off!\u201d it\u2019s hard to resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNoises Off!\u201d is the closing production of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Kernohan, it\u2019s another production with a big cast \u2013 something that proves tricky as audiences need to see not only the hilarious backstage shenanigans, but also the on-stage antics of the play-within-the-play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just straight fun, but it\u2019s also really, really technically difficult,\u201d he says of the show, which Theatre Aurora last mounted nearly 15 years ago. \u201cThe timing is extremely difficult for the folks who are doing the acting, and I am really looking forward to working with them on that and how it is going to look. We\u2019re actually foregoing some rentals in the theatre just so we can have a little longer to be able to rehearse on stage with the set for just that reason. To me, as a director, that is what I am most excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping to bring this vision to reality, adds Cragg, will be Robert Ward, Theatre Aurora\u2019s Director of Operations, who is a retired engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a set designer, he doesn\u2019t have a whole whack of theatre experience, but he is very good,\u201d she says. \u201cI have no clues about building anything; I could hammer a nail into something, and that\u2019s as far as I\u2019d go!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see how far they get along, book your tickets in advance!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd Then There Will None\u201d will be performed on select dates and times from March 7, 2025 \u2013 to March 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNoises Off!\u201d will take over the stage on select dates and times May 2 through May 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking to people \u2013 we\u2019ve spent some time at the Farmers\u2019 Market with our table \u2013 and one of the major things I\u2019ve heard is, \u2018I\u2019ve been going down to Toronto;\u2019 I don\u2019t want to disparage any of the plays in Toronto, but they said, \u2018We can to a couple of your shows last year and we didn\u2019t realize the quality was there.\u2019 Now what they\u2019re saying is, \u2018I don\u2019t need to go to Toronto to see a good show, you can stay in Aurora and come to Theatre Aurora\u2019 and we want to keep that up. It\u2019s a good, fun season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, including tickets, visit theatreaurora.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t have to go to Toronto for top-notch theatrical entertainment; premium productions are available right here in Aurora. That\u2019s the message that Theatre Aurora aims to underscore as they continue the rollout of their 2024-2025 season.As The Auroran reported last week, Theatre Aurora\u2019s upcoming season, which opens with Meredith Wilson\u2019s \u201cThe Music Man\u201d and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-95q","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 22:03:24","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}